Can an enemy wither his cheer? Not you, ye fair yellow-flowering
ladies,
Who join with your lords to jar the chords of a bosom heroic, and
clog.
’Tis the faltering friend, an inanimate land, may drag a great soul to
their Hades,
And plunge him far from a beam of star till he hears the deep bay
of the Dog.
Apparition is then of a monster-task, in a policy carving new
fashions:
The winninger course than the rule of force, and the springs lured
to run in a stream:
He would bend tough oak, he would stiffen the reed, point Reason to
swallow the passions,
Bid Britons awake two steps to take where one is a trouble extreme!
Not the less is he nerved with the Labourer’s resolute hope: that by
him shall be written,
To honour his race, this deed of grace, for the weak from the
strong made just:
That her sons over seas in a rally of praise may behold a thrice
vitalised Britain,
Ashine with the light of the doing of right: at the gates of the
Future in trust.
FORESIGHT AND PATIENCE
SPRUNG of the father blood, the mother brain,
Are they who point our pathway and sustain.
They rarely meet; one soars, one walks retired.
When they do meet, it is our earth inspired.
To see Life’s formless offspring and subdue
Desire of times unripe, we have these two,
Whose union is right reason: join they hands,
The world shall know itself and where it stands;
What cowering angel and what upright beast
Make man, behold, nor count the low the least,
Nor less the stars have round it than its flowers.
When these two meet, a point of time is ours.
As in a land of waterfalls, that flow
Smooth for the leap on their great voice below,
Some eddies near the brink borne swift along
Will capture hearing with the liquid song,
So, while the headlong world’s imperious force
Resounded under, heard I these discourse.
First words, where down my woodland walk she led,
To her blind sister Patience, Foresight said:
—Your faith in me appals, to shake my own,
When still I find you in this mire alone.
—The few steps taken at a funeral pace
By men had slain me but for those you trace.
—Look I once back, a broken pinion I:
Black as the rebel angels rained from sky!
—Needs must you drink of me while here you live,
And make me rich in feeling I can give.
—A brave To-be is dawn upon my brow:
Yet must I read my sister for the How.
My daisy better knows her God of beams
Than doth an eagle that to mount him seems.
She hath the secret never fieriest reach
Of wing shall master till men hear her teach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account